Pears

[Chuck52]

I started getting the new seed and plant catalogs back before Christmas....they ALL know me. Got the latest Miller Nursery catalog and it opened to the pear trees as soon as I picked it up. Trying to tell me something? I have a number of different apple trees, as well as peach, plum, and one lone North Star cherry, but no pears so far. I don't know why I haven't added pears to my "orchard", just haven't gotten around to it I guess. Anyways, now I'm thinking of ordering some and have to decide which ones. I'll probably get a Bartlett, because that seems to be the most common home orchard variety, but past that I don't know. Anyone got a favorite pear they grow? How about the asian pears? They are appealing because they are supposed to be fairly easy and have few pests and disease issues. For that matter, aside from the #$%%^& deer, my main problem has been cedar apple rust, and I think most pears are immune to that anyway.

I have to fence each tree I plant long enough to let them grow to the stage that the deer can't kill them easily. My orchard isn't designed in such a way as to be easy to fence the whole thing, and a fence that would keep the deer out would be expensive too. Anyway, planting fruit trees for me is a big deal. Mowing down the fescue in the area I want to use; planting the trees; putting up the individual fence circles, and then mowing around them and usually using Round-Up inside the circles. It sure has been nice to take down the fences from those few trees which have gotten big enough to withstand some browsing.

Chuck

 

[Flatheadyoungin]

lot's of questions, i have too...

looks to be a good thread...

my only pear tree, the pears are hard.......maybe the ones off of the ground are like that......i surely don't know anything about orchard trees

my neighbor says his are hard too.......

 

[Chuck52]

I understand that with pears you pick them and let them ripen up and soften off the tree, unlike most fruits.

Chuck

 

[dooleysm]

We got a 5 gallon bucket of pears given to us last year from a guy that has a few trees. He said to let them ripen before eating. It took a while but we did finally get some delicious pears. The problem seemed to be that they went from hard to ripe to rotten in about 24 hours. We kept them in garage, so maybe that was the problem?

 

[homeinwestIL]

Keep in mind that you need two different varieties of pear to properly pollinate. I think that Moonglow is a good pollinator. I have 2 pear trees--Moonglow and Starkling Delicious--in my orchard, purchased from Stark Bros, as you would guess. I have room for another and think I may add a Bartlett. They seemed to take longer than my apple and peach trees purchased at the same time to start fruiting, and seem more sensitive to a late freeze than the other kind of fruit trees. I got maybe a dozen pears off of the two trees last year, after, I think, nine years. They are a good size, though, and expect them to start fruiting more heavily, weather permitting. I have had the same problem with deer and use the same solution, though I am in the process of building a fence around my whole orchard/garden area instead. I'm tired of watching the deer stand up on their hind legs to reach apples and peaches above their normal browsing height--they are taking more than their share.

 

[Chuck52]

We were thinking the deer problem was getting better this year, since we hadn't seen as many in the yard. Yesterday the wife watched one walk within ten feet of a back window, so they're still out there.

I've got some trees that will never get big enough to discourage the deer, like my North Star cherry. I'm thinking I might try some standard pear trees instead of my usual semi-dwarf.

I've bought trees from Stark Bros and Millers as well as other sources, and I've had good luck with everything but sweet cherries. I just talked about Millers because that was the catalog that got me thinking pears. I may end up ordering any pear trees from Stark, because they are much closer to me so that the shipping time will be a bit shorter. I've been to the Stark Nursery store in Louisiana, MO. It's about a two hour drive from my place, and if I had a van I'd consider driving there to buy trees. I'll have to check their prices and also see about varieties. In the Miller catalog, the Max-Red Bartlett and Colette sound good. And I am thinking hard about some Asian pears, which seem to only be available as dwarfed trees. I have so much trouble with cedar apple rust on the apples that pears appeal just for not being susceptible to that.

If all my fruit and nut trees start producing I'll be giving fruit as presents for all occasions.

Chuck

 

[Chuck52]

OK. Now I'm getting serious. I have an order coming this spring for four cedar/apple rust resistant apple trees and a couple of heartnut seedlings from a place called Burnt Ridge Nursery, and I just looked at their pear trees. I'll be calling them to add two European pears and two Asian pears to my order....as soon as I decide which ones. I've decided on Bartlett and Giant Korean so far....maybe I'll have my mind made up by the time they are open out there on the west coast.

Time to go to Home Despot for some more welded-wire fence. Darn deer.

Chuck

 

[MossRoad]

We've got a big old pear tree in our back yard. I wish I knew what kind they were, but they look like regular bartlet to me. Anyhow, some years they are so thick they break the branches off the tree. Most years, we get frost damage and that limits or eliminates the crop. On the thick years, I pick about half the fruit off as early as I can to give the other fruit a chance. Too many fruits and they are all small.

We usually start picking them when the squirrels appear. The squirrels seem to know when fruit will be ripe and usually pick it clean a few days before the weekend we plan to harvest. They crack open the pears and eat the seeds. We pick them hard, then lay them out on newspaper in the basement, where it is cool. We cover them with newspaper, too. I've tried putting them in a box, but they tend to ripen from the inside out. By the time they seem ripe on the outside, the inside has rotted.

The newspaper over the top tends to trap some of the ethylene gas that they produce and they ripen in about a week in the basement that way. I peel them with an apple peeler, cut them in half, scoop out the cores and boil them in sugar water until they are almost soft. Then we can them hot in hot jars and cover them with the sugar water. Into the water bath canner for 15 minutes and they are good to go.

I also have good luck with freezing them in the sugar water.

 

[Chuck52]

I've been trying to reduce my squirrel population because I'm planting nut trees, but I've heard from other folks that the tree rats also get their pears. They don't seem to go after apples so much, at least not mine. I've had raccoons get my peaches. I know it was mainly coons and not squirrels because of the damage to the trees. I trapped something like 15 coons last year while the peaches were disappearing, and toward the end I think I slowed them down some. We got a dozen or so Belle of Georgia peaches that we picked early, just so we could get something. The coons got all the earlier ripening Red Havens. I may start trapping again this weekend to get a head start on the game. I might even be able to find a trapper who will take the coons off my hands for the skins, since the pelts should be good now.

Chuck